


Robin-Green Lies

by nadiavandyne



Series: h/c bingo 2018 [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Community: hc_bingo, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Suicidal Thoughts, Unreliable Narrator, past Tim Drake/Tam Fox, tfw when ur in the back of ur ex's car and you've had a Bad Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 12:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15096290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadiavandyne/pseuds/nadiavandyne
Summary: Tam’s a mistake he can’t feel bad about because she’s hisfriendand sometimes when he’s around her he feels a little less like the fuck-up he is.





	Robin-Green Lies

There’s a sheet in the back of Tam’s car.

“ _Tim_.” She says, and her voice is low, worrying, caring, all those adjectives that hurt to think.

She helps pull him in, only slightly wincing at the blood on his side from his ripped stitches, and keeps one steady hand on his bicep, holding him in place. The other hand runs it’s slim fingers through the back of his hair, unmatting where the blood had caused it to stick together.

The touch is too much and not enough all at once, and for a moment his heart _aches_ about the fact that he couldn’t make this work.

Tam is gorgeous like usual, black hair tied back in a low ponytail, with little strands framing her face. She’s quite literally glittering, the highlighter she applies liberally dusting her cheekbones, gold shimmering in the shitty Gotham underground parking garage light. There’s a cut on her right temple from the last ninja bullshit Tim accidentally got her involved in, but it just makes her look cool and badass. Which she is. And he’s still waiting for how many ninja drop-ins it takes for her to kick him out of the back of her car.

 _Fuck_ , he’s pathetic. Tam’s already helping him deal with the bleeding, and he’s working robotically to take care of it, trying to block out any pain. Because the fight’s over now, so he’s just in his little puddle of pain and self-hatred, which is really, _really_ pitiful.

Tam finishes his stitches, and they’re a little bit wonky, but she never spent hours and hours relearning them, practicing until her fingers bled, plus, they somehow look better than Tim’s do. Not in style, but he wants to flinch a little less when he sees them, because the neat, picturesque stitches he learned years ago bring back memories, and memories suck. 

“Prepare yourself to be a human bruise tomorrow,” Tam’s voice is light, almost cheery, as she picks up one of his arms, runs perfectly manicured purple fingers over the bruising and the band-aids. There’s the Green Lantern one Bart stuck on his elbow, an abundance of Wonder Woman ones that Tam herself stuck on him, a few custom-made Ravager ones that Rose hit him with because she’s a dick. It’s a lie--from the tone of her voice to the injuries that really should have gotten more medical attention instead of child friendly band-aids, but whatever.

He’s been lying for long enough now that pushing down the guilt at everything he’s done is much too easy. And the slightly faded, now peeling remininents of people deciding his scrapes needed a more colorful cover are almost comforting.

The Wonder Woman ones were originally Jason’s, but during some supervillain-Ra’s-you- _fucker_ -event, Tam and the Red Hood bonded. Which is probably a good thing, because when Jason isn’t all green he’s an actual respectable human being. He reads more than case files and he’s surprisingly friendly towards strangers, he’s polite and helpful and somehow more stable than Tim. When he isn’t green, Hood rarely fucks up his allies, something Tim’s got a history of doing, from Jean-Paul to Tam herself.

So the band-aids were Tam’s, and she stuck them on him the _last_ time he fucked up her life. 

She was stunning than and she’s stunning now, and he doesn’t want to focus on the blood because focusing on the blood means focusing on Tam and than he has to remember how he bled then, which is remarkably similar to how he’s bleeding now, and the last time he stepped on a beach he nearly threw up and Owens and Z haunted him for the rest of the day. So he focuses on the band-aids but each and every one of them is a memory of a mistake and Tam—

Tam’s a mistake he can’t feel bad about because she’s his _friend_ and sometimes when he’s around her a feels a little less like the fuck-up he is.

It’s not _fair_ , what he did to Tam. Because she found him bleeding out in a hotel room and now he’s bleeding out in the back of his car and all he can feel is thankful, that she hasn’t kicked him out yet.

“Goddess.” He says, ignoring the red on his hands, and how the fresh blood stains the white WW bandaid on his ring finger. “You are a _goddess,_ Tam.”

Tam smiles and it’s a weak smile, she’s so worried she’s practically _screaming_ it, but her face lights up anyway, the way it always does with a smile. “I know.” She says. “And the goddess commands you to scoot back so you don’t get blood on my leather seats.”

The sheet has been a near constant in Tam’s car for a while now, and Tim’s got no idea if she just has a near endless supply of them or if she’s paying someone to actually clean it. But Tim has a history of destroying cars and Tam made it clear she was _not about that, ninja-boy_ , so she went to a nice fabric shop while Tim argued semantics with Dick in the Batcave, and now there’s a thick fleece blanket in the back of her car.

It’s green, bright _robin_ green, and Tim kinda wants to cry whenever he sees it, cry and curl up in a tiny ball on it, cry and burn it all to hell.

He does neither of those things, but Tam has a strict lighter policy in her car that makes no sense because he knows she’s never smoked, plus, she frequently keeps tissues in the back. And they only rarely end up using them to mop up blood, so.

He keeps his lighters in his utility belt and doesn’t cry. Tam enforces her fire rule and keeps tissues stocked. 

“You stink.” She says, leaning back into the driver's seat, and her floral perfume smells heavenly. She changed it to a stronger scent, after she met Tim. “You smell like something that died.”

“I haven’t been drinking.” His eyes flick up, because that wasn’t what she was asking and she already knew that but… “I made contact with a vodka bottle though. Violent, skin to bottle contact.”

She deserves the truth. For now, he can give her that.

Tam raises a perfectly done eyebrow at him in the rear view mirror.

“My side.” He lays back on the sheet, ignoring how the robin green wraps around his legs, too familiar yet too foreign. “Do you know… where my phone is?”

Tam tosses it back and starts the car. Tim catches it, his side twinges, and he looks at the phone. It’s his, all right, but the screen is broken from shear impact. And it’s his civilian phone.

He can’t remember throwing it at a wall that hard. He’s not sure he wants to. It must’ve been an argument with _someone_ , but considering the amount of people he’s pissed off lately, that doesn’t narrow it down.

“Goddess.” He considers the phone again, but even the thought of swiping it open is exhausting, and he drops it down onto the sheet.

“You can give your offering to me via getting my car cleaned.” She brings the car in a tight turn. “Seriously. I don’t want to explain to my dad why the car smells like a brewery, but using you as an excuse, even if it’s a true one, feels kinda mean.”

“Ay ay, boss.” He gives her a lazy salute, and his side protests that. 

Tam has this kind of class to her that’s youthful and timeless, it’s three am and she’s picking her ex-boyfriend up after he got a vodka bottle shattered across his hip; yet she still manages to effortlessly seem elegant.

Tim’s not exactly sure what his feelings on that are but he knows he’s definitely _having_ feelings about that. 

They drive in silent for a few minutes, and Tim examines the smaller cuts on his side, trying to decide if he could use bandaids to bandage some of them. Probably not. They look… sort of ugly. 

“Hey,” Tam says suddenly. He looks up, rolling a little back further into the sheet, and tries not to aggravate his side. She’s tapping out a two-four rhythm on the wheel, eyes on the road. “Try to stay alive, okay? I don’t want to have to work with your father as CEO.”

Tim smiles. It’s humorless, almost foreign in his mouth, the feeling of skin bunching up, but it’s real. A little real, at least. Not a _Timothy Drake-Wayne_ smile. “God Tam, who do you take me for? I’m not _that_ cruel.” His shoulders relaxed, just a bit, loosening up, settling into the lie he was about to tell. “I will,” He said, hating himself, hating the words, and hating the Robin-green that had started this all. “I will.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a mess, but so is Tim, so it's okay. 
> 
> National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
> 
> Thank you for reading!! You can find me on tumblr at nadia--van--dyne if you'd like to scream about comics with me.


End file.
